A while ago a few of us were working on a campaign system and universe for 15mm gamers to inhabit and allow cross overs from the different scifi 15mm manufacturers miniatures with other games and rulesets, and so forth. The project stalled, probably due to the amount of work it would have taken over time and other commitments. Myself too having family health problems at the time didn’t help either. Anyway, it started me off creating a race of space dragon saurians for the campaign, which then lead to me doing a few sculpts, so by then I was invested into the idea and not wanting to waste a good idea, have devised ways and means to combine them with what I would like to think of as the “Grinning Skull Universe” setting (which includes the Oggam, Pliiim, Kize, and all my other strange and weird aliens) So I think it’s time to create a new book in my Grinning Skull Ebook suppliments range, but this time will detail that of the Draxxion race! (Hey, if I can do it for mutant pig ogres, I can sure do the same for space dragons!)

Here’s a start to it, there’s still loads to do, notes, diagrams, charts and even some fiction to come (as well as some art too) Please have a read, and tell me what you think or if it inspires you any!

The Royal houses of the Draxxion

The history of the Draxx Millions of years ago, at the time of the great extinction on earth, there dwelled a race of great saurian creatures that lived at the same time as the legendary dinosaurs. These creatures were intelligent and wise, highly advanced in all sciences, wisdom and learning. They lived in cities above and below the ground, and were happy and successful, until the planet killer came. This huge asteroid was fortold by the scholars and wise, prompting them to take steps to preserve their numbers by escaping to the stars. Huge ark ships were constructed to transport them and their stocks of more primitive relations to safer worlds. Thus the asteroid came (which they name “H’chosk’uhur” or the “Great Motivator”) and most of the early Draxxion race fled to nearby systems to find a new home. Thus the mammals inherited the earth and the Draxxion settled in several new worlds. Over the millions of years the Draxx race flourished, many times would civilisations rise and fall on many worlds they inhabited, sometimes leading to new advances in the arts and science, sometimes leading to disaster and stunting their progress. Around the Draxxion universal 12,788 (AD 1590) The Draxx were in the hieght of another multiworld war with each other, as the worlds of Metritoch, Vich’iktin and Gannis were laid waste by the battles fought by rival Draxxion brothers, Eclipsion, Infernus and Meteora and forces loyal to them. This wide spanning war threatened to destabilise and engulf hundreds of smaller planets in the wake, each staging large battles with immense weapons of war. The decision was made to put a stop to the fighting by uniting against the three sides with allied force led by many mighty and legendary Draxxion leaders and champions,thereby creating the Grand Conclave of the Elder Council (Which still stands today) The council eventually battled the brothers, each eventually succumbing to the authority of the conclave and beginning a golden age of peace and co-operation between all Draxx. Ever since this formation, the Royal Houses of the most influencial players in this war are remembered by the founding and each can trace their hertiage back to any of the houses.

There are hundreds of these royal lines, some large and influencial, some small and insignificant, but still each hold a direct line back to that war and the heroes of old.

INFERNUS: Decendants of Infernus, dwellers adapted to worlds of high temperatures, highly proud and warlike.

METEORA: Decendants of Meteora, tough and resilient, adapted to dry worlds of rock and stone, blunt and to the point.

ECLIPSION: decendants of Eclipsion, scheming and sly, dwell on worlds with little light and harsh conditions.

AYRTACLON: Decended from Ayrtaclon, dwell in many worlds, but favour mountainous or high altitudes, famed for their wings and affinity with flight ad starship tech.

TYRIDION: Tyridion’s forebarers are formidable psions and arcanists, feared by all for their ability to “know the fates” and second guess opponents.

AQUATAYNE: This house stem from the line of Aquatayne, living upon many waterworlds within undersea caverns and cities, changable and deadly. Mistrusted for thier neurotic behaviour.

SERAPENTIA: Decended from Serapenta and Serapentis, the twin wyrms, Politicians, diplomats, spies, lowlife. Seen to be highly suspect in all matters, excell in science and advanced medicene.

JURASSIKA: Having a more prehistoric look about them, this house could be further from it, they prize high tech ideas and equipment.

PANGARI: While dracconic looking, the House of Pangari amount to some of the most ancient ways and traditions, often looked upon as backwater cousins.

VERTIGAN: Favour a more classic approach to draxxion living, and more natural settings and environments. Fearless and unashamed in behaviour.

WYNTATHORN: Occupying cold and frigid worlds, hardy and resilient, warlike and highly traditional in their ways. Tend to have the most random assortment of equipment available

META’LYKORR: Vain, arrogant, highly strung and proud of their heritage. Discriminatory of the “lesser” and inferior. Bullies of the highest order.

KAOTIKA: Generally despised by the other houses for their highly varying appearances, these favour places of high radioactivity and have questionable past breeding with mutations galore. cunning and wily, they tend to side with the best options in the council.

Each royal house or bloodline is made up from many related smaller families, all of which are decended from the original
house progentitor.
These might be anything from a large multi system empire ran by an ancient emperor warlord, or just a world or moon ruled by a single young Draxxion.
It is likely that most of these worlds populations are also decended from common ancestors, given that Draxxion live for a long time, but out breeding and mutations have created many forms of these lower Draxx giving each world diversity in appearance.
The High Draxxion however tend to exhibit a more dracconic look than their lower kin.
Each house therefore have enhanced traits, adaptions and colourings that are shared by most others in their family genus, some of this can be traced direct to the common ancestors of the line, or due to certain environmetal planetary factors that they have been exposed to over thousands of years successive breeding. This avert display of the exaggerated characteristics is how the Darxxion caste system is played out within “polite” draxxion society, breeding and heritage is everything, without it a Draxx is a nobody, with it they could stand side to side with emperors and kings!
The greater good of the entire draxxion races falls on the juristicion of the Grand conclave of the Elder council, a great meeting of the strongest and most powerful high draxxion kingdoms and worlds. Only the best of the best ever get to play this truly collossal scale of these politics, in which negotiations can quickly become frought with danger of a fight between houses or simply two rival 100 foot high dragon lords disputing territory.
The more thoughtful members of this council use their influnce to go even further than their own galactic doorstep to further their gains, and as such a great deal of the intergalactic politics is concerned with that of rival alien races and empires.
The Draxx influence has thus been slowly and surely been introduced to many other places and governments, corporations and factions over the years, giving them far more reach than just their home systems, indeed many high draxxion can be found in roles throughout the galaxy, as advisors, corporation board members, ambassadors, and special envoys, in fact in any high ranking roles they can find out for themselves, especially when these jobs involve added clout in the spherse of influence they can manipulate.

Not to say that all Draxxion are sly manipulating creatures, indeed some are kindly and peaceful, just not many!
A trait that most Draxxion share is that of materialistic greed and the want to horde beautiful and precious things, since the high draxx can live for thousands of years, they feel the need to furnish themselves with these things, even if it may come at a cost to their own people, and as a result, the lower draxx lines can be left in deprived and sometimes primitive conditions.
Even so the “accepted” Philosophy is that any Draxx may aspire to greatness and achieve the ideal draxxion potential, this tends to be not the case unless you are born a high draxxion. Many of the lower draxxion tend to resign themselves to loyal service in their High Draxxion houses, and tend to be rewarded well, on the flip side, lots of low draxx find that the inherent elitism within the draxx houses leaves them with a bitter taste in their mouths, and may rebel or abscond from service.
If found, these traitors are severely dealt with, a lord who would not make an example of such insubordination would be seen as being weak and unable to control his domain, easy prey for a rival to come and take what was his. Standard High Draxxion protocol!

Each family line of the main houses, are made up from the eldest surviving decendants. Each elder has a family line within the house, and is responsible for all its kin. (For example: Firebranch Infernus are the decendents of the legendary draxxion lord Infernus, Firebranch is the grandson of Infernus, thus Firebranch Infernus is the family line in the house Infernus, and so on.)
The oldest surviving member of each line is expected to take the mantle of leader of the line, however at times this varies if other factors are involved (marriage, exile, etc) As you can imagine, there is a lot of intense backstabbing and underhanded schemes, as the draxxion rarely hold the family ties precious.
The other functions of house business are divided up amongst the other important elder draxx within the family, right down to the youngest up and coming high draxx, although sometimes influencial lower draxxion who show promise may gain positions. This may be more to do with contact between other races as a way to lessen the impact of direct face to face dealings, as the elder draxx are massive nightmarish creatures that may create fear and tension. The lower draxx tend to be less menacing, so are used frequently as envoys and messengers to limit hostilities, and in turn helps facilitate better relations!

DRAXXION FORCES

Typically, a Draxxion force is lead by a Lord overseer, charged with keeping order. These overseer lords are Elder High draxx and will resemble what is more recognised as a typical “Dragon” in form. Rarely will they take part in main hostilities, prefering to watch the battles to study and annalyse the data in which to learn valuable knowledge on the tactics use by the foes.
Following these are a retinue of lesser ranking Elder Draxx and other High draxx, who will be responsible for different sections of the forces. These then are followed by elite high draxx troops who serve to protect the family.
These are followed by the smaller draxx who display more dracconic features and are closer related to the higher caste, but have evolved a more humanoid appearance, they will usually feature heavily in a typical draxx force, as these tend to form the backbone of the elite and specialist troops.
Lower draxx make up the numbers with hordes of them desperately trying to gain favour of the lords, they are often reffered to as Neo-Draxx and some even look not far from a human in many cases, and may pass with little effort, sometimes only given away by telltale traits like scaly skin, a forked tongue, fangs or reptillian eyes. Some Neo-draxx have developed shapeshifting illusionary holotech and skinsuits to help infiltrate populations in secret, especially to conquer worlds, or assassinate rivals of other races. The Eclipsion Royal house is fond of this tactic and are masters of stealth.
A typical Lower (Neo) Draxx can come from a myriad of different worlds, from low tech primitive worlds, or borderline highly advanced with tech to match, so they can be armed withanything from simple archaic ancient weaponry and armour, to entire divisions of the latest model alien equipment, vehicles, flyers and walkers. It really is a case of just how much wealth an overseer lord is prepared to spend on his latest “toys”. High Draxxion are very materialistic and superficial, so the latest must have fighting warbot or Grav tank is just the thing to show their superiority to a rival Draxx lord!
The Draxx will use whatever is available and best suited to the task, they spend long periods of time plotting and scheming, planning elaborate strategies for optimum effect. Many Draxx have positions of influence outside that of their own kingdoms, often titles within offworld corporations or secret alliances with other non draxxion factions. Such is the shady reputation of some, a few are rumoured to fund huge criminal organisations and operations anonymously. By way of these connections Draxx forces can sometimes include such things as hired mercenaries, subjugated human or alien populations drafted into service, even “borrowed”corporation troops and equipment. Indeed, each Draxx force is as different and unique as its lord overseer.

Well, That’s the beginning of it at least, sorting through my note books and scribbles there are loads more still to be written up and developed. A few of you might of even seen the pic of the draxxion overseer elite guard commander that I did. So for those who haven’t here it is!

Along with a few more of his kin, both big and small they will be joining the Grinning Skull range. Over time I hope this will grow in both models and mythology.

If you’d like to help carve out the Draxxion by submitting any material or pics, please let me know, I’d love a few colaborators to work with (that way there will be a totally different angle from their side!) Please do let me know (grimacereaper73 (at) gmail.com)

Hi there, Thanks for your message!
The Draxx came from another project, but have now been assimilated into my “Grinning Skull Universal Carnage” setting (There’ll be lots more of that to come, including some real campaign settings and rules toward the end of the year) I really needed some other foes for the Oggam, so something larger and carniverous fitted the bill (hence meat eating saurians and their allies are set for the “Bacon Wars” campaign after the “War Pigs!” first campaign)
The Oggam are my first born and while the Draxx will be added to the grinning skull roster, they will always be playing second fiddle as far as the Oggam are concerned! There’s just so many new ideas I have for them (Mutant Oggam, Clockwork Oggam robots, Bi-planes, Og-Mech, Clukkatrix, Trogg transporters, Snozz beasts, to name but a few things being planned for future release, honestly there’s loads!) so for oggam army players there will be tons of choice!
Let me know what types of stuff you want to see in the range and if enough people want something and I get inspired, I may end up making it to go in the range!!!

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